I’ve never much liked milestones. I know some people love them, live by them, use them to congratulate themselves on their accomplishments and admonish themselves to work harder in the future.

Maud Newton, who I know originally from my work with Narrative Magazine, talks about Wreckage of Reason II in her last New York Times Magazine mini-column this weekend, out online today and in the print magazine this Sunday.

Something to think about:  A really excellent writer, who happens to be a friend of mine, spent the early part of her life as a writer reading and writing romance novels which she has since relegated to the trash bin as being beneath her.

Okay, first of all, I know the title would have to read, Anthony Marra, President Obama, and I  in order to be grammatically correct as a subject, as in Anthony Marra, President Obama and I have this book in common.

Professor Doug Rice, author of Dream Memoirs of a Fabulist and A Good Cuntboy is Hard to Find, (and more) was the second reader for my graduate thesis and a remarkable teacher of the craft of writing.